There is no shortage of archaeologists who buy into the shamanic hypothesis of rock art production,and no shortage of them mentioning quartz being associated with shamans but what is usually missing are the shamen . Quartz is found in association with many ancient monuments and and arguably directly associated with the belief systems /cosmology of the people who built and used the monuments but that doesn't mean they were shamen , or there were any shamen in their culture . This is particularly evident in Africa ,America and Australia where ethnography demonstrates time and again that indigenes not only don't use the word but the description does not fit their type of medicine man , spiritual specialist etc . Exactly , manuports are one thing , and it might be possible to provide a good argument in their favour , or suggesting quartz jammed into the fissures of a rock art site being related to the engravers , but shamen's kit is easy to say , much to easily accepted by an uncritical audience , impossible to prove and untestable .

Yep , fossils ,ammonites and oddly shaped /visually striking stones are chosen for their character and often found at thresholds /entrances , enhanced or used in association with later engravings etc .

It's very easy to find references to shaman usage of quartz crystals, and their presence in shamans kits. I mean, I could go on all day where that particular manuport is concerned. I don't know where you're getting your assumptions from, but you're not even spelling the word shaman correctly. I think you're really mistaken here. But, you're entitled to believe anything you please...

As far as Native Americans and fossils, this is the best book on the subject, from my own experience. Since I collect both fossils and artifacts, I could also provide you with a good deal of examples where fossils were collected and used by Native Americans. Meteorites as well, principly by the Hopewell culture...

The above image is a gastrolith with a well worn thumb location to the right and a lesser but well worn finger location to the left. This was a surface find that included three other gastroliths, a mano, possible dinosaur egg, white quartz small rounded stone, and a oval rounded jasper hammer stone. These objects were all found under leaf mold in extremely close proximity to one another and were located at the exact high point on a knob protruding from a NW facing mountain spine. From the find spot one observes that the sun sets perfectly in a mountain cleft on the winter solstice. Other artifacts have been recovered from the general area within 50' of the gastroliths, etc. There is a terrace complex near and associated to the knob (called "the central knoll").

Also, many suspected artifacts are coming from specific surface contexts such as springheads and specific spring branch locations. Though without context in a stratigraphic setting, they have group and locational context. There are large numbers of interesting stones coming from these locations. I have noticed that in these finds are many crystals and crystals in rock martrix. My guess is that they were interesting and collected by folks much in the same manner as my finding them, but certainly in part for different reasons.

A geologist/archaeologist identified the gastroliths and opined that the entire group could be sacred stones. This may have been the pat answer or maybe he had more substantial reasons for thinking so. I found that there is a very small amount of exposed Jurrasic ground in the county to the east of the mountain site. This could be a source of dinosaur material or it could have been traded or carried from afar.

Good to keep in mind that as of today, 2018, the only place where dinosaur egg fossils have been found in the entirety of North America is in the state of Montana. By the famous dinosaur hunting paleontologist, Jack Horner. Here's an old Washington Post article describing that discovery:

Dinosaur eggs are also known from Argentina in South America. That's it for the Western Hemisphere. I have a number of dinosaur eggs from China, before their export was forbidden by their government, although you can still obtain them. They were exported by the thousands for awhile...

"It's very easy to find references to shaman usage of quartz crystals, and their presence in shamans kits." Yes I know .I just said that it was common to find the association with shamen and their kits e.g. " There is no shortage of archaeologists who buy into the shamanic hypothesis of rock art production,and no shortage of them mentioning quartz being associated with shamans " . Despite the complete lack of evidence to support the claim in a prehistoric context and no mention of "shiny rocks " , if they were quartz why didn't you say so ?

"you're not even spelling the word shaman correctly." Did you miss "If north American, wouldn't they much more likely have been described by the informant(s) as something different from "shaman ", " Shamen = plural of shaman . Didn't you know that ? Never come across shamanistic . What about shamaniacs , they are dying out , but were big about 20 years ago , thanks to the misconceptions of Lewis -Williams and Whitley etc , essentially anyone who uncritically bought into the shamen were responsible for prehistoric rock art and the engravings are to be found all over the world despite no evidence to support the claim .More to the point it is a North Asian word ,that isn't even acceptable to native americans .

Where am I mistaken ? If you believe the association between shamen and rock art then it's you who are gravely mistaken , all you have do to do is prove it . Nobody has in any continent .

The Tlingit kits are clearly not ancient .Did you find your shiny rocks in the north west ? Were the shiny rocks as recent as the Tlingit kits ? Does the modern Tlingit kits suggest that they were also to be found in prehistory ? Finding a group of " shiny rocks " , even if they were the second most common mineral on the planet , and uncritically assuming they were from a shaman's kit is a massive leap of faith .

Don't you understand when someone is agreeing with you i.e. "Yep , fossils ,ammonites and oddly shaped /visually striking stones are chosen for their character and often found at thresholds /entrances , enhanced or used in association with later engravings etc ." Nothing about shamen , but about the interest in striking stones .

Tiompan wrote:"It's very easy to find references to shaman usage of quartz crystals, and their presence in shamans kits." Yes I know .I just said that it was common to find the association with shamen and their kits e.g. " There is no shortage of archaeologists who buy into the shamanic hypothesis of rock art production,and no shortage of them mentioning quartz being associated with shamans " . Despite the complete lack of evidence to support the claim in a prehistoric context and no mention of "shiny rocks " , if they were quartz why didn't you say so ?

"you're not even spelling the word shaman correctly." Did you miss "If north American, wouldn't they much more likely have been described by the informant(s) as something different from "shaman ", " Shamen = plural of shaman . Didn't you know that ? Never come across shamanistic . What about shamaniacs , they are dying out , but were big about 20 years ago , thanks to the misconceptions of Lewis -Williams and Whitley etc , essentially anyone who uncritically bought into the shamen were responsible for prehistoric rock art and the engravings are to be found all over the world despite no evidence to support the claim .More to the point it is a North Asian word ,that isn't even acceptable to native americans .

Where am I mistaken ? If you believe the association between shamen and rock art then it's you who are gravely mistaken , all you have do to do is prove it . Nobody has in any continent .

The Tlingit kits are clearly not ancient .Did you find your shiny rocks in the north west ? Were the shiny rocks as recent as the Tlingit kits ? Does the modern Tlingit kits suggest that they were also to be found in prehistory ? Finding a group of " shiny rocks " , even if they were the second most common mineral on the planet , and uncritically assuming they were from a shaman's kit is a massive leap of faith .

Don't you understand when someone is agreeing with you i.e. "Yep , fossils ,ammonites and oddly shaped /visually striking stones are chosen for their character and often found at thresholds /entrances , enhanced or used in association with later engravings etc ." Nothing about shamen , but about the interest in striking stones .

Yes, I did find a reference to shamen as plural, though shamans was noted as the more common plural form. But, yes, you taught me something there.

I don't believe I spoke about or commented at all about shamans and rock art. At all.

Roger Williams, who referred to Narragansett spiritual practitioners as "priests", not shamans, spoke of seeing them utilize quartz crystals in healing ceremonies. This was in one of his letters, dating from the 1650's. They did not learn the practice from the English, naturally, and it can be safely inferred that the practice extended back in time. Williams devoted a chapter in his "A Key Into the Language of America"(1643), one of the earliest works describing Algonquian culture to Europeans, to Narragansett religion, where he described their spiritual practitioners. . Describing their language, he also broke the book up into elements of Narragansett culture when conveying the Narragansett language. The relevant chapter for his discussion of Narragansett shamanism is Chapter XXL, "Of Religion, the soule, etc". His description of the shamans, or again, as he referred to them, the "priests", makes it obvious he is referring to practices common to shamanism. If you think for one second I am going to get in, with you, a situation similar to your never ending argument, with E.P., over his use of the word "henge", nope, I'll pass.

Of course Williams, in 1643, did not call them shamans. I am, and if I am somehow mistaken in doing so, I'll live with it. If it offends you, I don't care. I am referring to both the techniques of spiritual practice, and the world view, when applying the term. And Williams was not alone in decribing those practices, and world view, of local New England tribes, in the 1600's. But he was one of the few who respected them enough to study and describe them, and defend their rights to the land the English were acquiring from them. And he was keenly interested in their religious beliefs, and went to some length, and detail, in describing their shamans. Including, in a later letter, not the book "A Key....", witnessing the use of crystals in ceremonies by Narragansett "priests".

As far as the Tlingit, yes, it is safe to assume the practice extended into prehistory. Are you going to argue that they most likely invented it in Contact times, or picked it up from European explorers/settlers? If Roger Williams noted their usage of quartz in the mid 1600's, during the Contact era, among the Narragansett, it's a safe enough assumption to infer that usage extended further back in time.

The latter assumption is supported by the archeological evidence, as crystals and colorful pebbles have been found primarily in Archaic Era cremation burials in the Northeast. I am aware of one excavated site where they were found(crystals and attractive polished pebbles) together in a manner suggested they were associated with each other, possibly, that's possibly, in a since disintegrated container. In the case of the cremation burials, they were always found in association with red ochre smeared artifacts.

The article by Fowler, at this link, is pretty dated, but it will at least allow you to see some of the manuports found in Archaic Era cremation burials in New England:

As far as your description of where fossils are located, I am completely unaware of what you are describing as pertaining to Native American sites. I am aware of the use of crinoid stems as beads, and the crafting of small drilled pendants from Utah trilobites. I am also aware of pendants created from fern fossils found in the Rhode Island Formation. You may have been agreeing with me about fossils, I'm not aware I was replying to you in a manner to suggest I was arguing with you about fossils, but I will state what I stated above: my knowledge of fossils and Native Americans involves how they utilized them once they collected them, and I am not aware of the usage you describe. If that bothers you somehow, I don't know why, but whatever.....

Rather then attempting to resize photos, here is a link to the pendant displaying a ~290 million year old fern, from the Rhode Island Formation, and which a friend found years ago. Great example of a Native American from my region who was also, like myself, a fossil collector. This is one of my favorite locally found pieces:

Tiompan wrote:"It's very easy to find references to shaman usage of quartz crystals, and their presence in shamans kits." Yes I know .I just said that it was common to find the association with shamen and their kits e.g. " There is no shortage of archaeologists who buy into the shamanic hypothesis of rock art production,and no shortage of them mentioning quartz being associated with shamans " . Despite the complete lack of evidence to support the claim in a prehistoric context and no mention of "shiny rocks " , if they were quartz why didn't you say so ?

"you're not even spelling the word shaman correctly." Did you miss "If north American, wouldn't they much more likely have been described by the informant(s) as something different from "shaman ", " Shamen = plural of shaman . Didn't you know that ? Never come across shamanistic . What about shamaniacs , they are dying out , but were big about 20 years ago , thanks to the misconceptions of Lewis -Williams and Whitley etc , essentially anyone who uncritically bought into the shamen were responsible for prehistoric rock art and the engravings are to be found all over the world despite no evidence to support the claim .More to the point it is a North Asian word ,that isn't even acceptable to native americans .

Where am I mistaken ? If you believe the association between shamen and rock art then it's you who are gravely mistaken , all you have do to do is prove it . Nobody has in any continent .

The Tlingit kits are clearly not ancient .Did you find your shiny rocks in the north west ? Were the shiny rocks as recent as the Tlingit kits ? Does the modern Tlingit kits suggest that they were also to be found in prehistory ? Finding a group of " shiny rocks " , even if they were the second most common mineral on the planet , and uncritically assuming they were from a shaman's kit is a massive leap of faith .

Don't you understand when someone is agreeing with you i.e. "Yep , fossils ,ammonites and oddly shaped /visually striking stones are chosen for their character and often found at thresholds /entrances , enhanced or used in association with later engravings etc ." Nothing about shamen , but about the interest in striking stones .

And, BTW, the description from the MAS artifact guide, which I quoted, said "may have been" associated with shamans kits. It did not say, proven, without any doubt, incontrovertible evidence. It said "may". And when collectors in my region find, as a result of surface hunting, not as a result of illegally excavating cremation burials, rocks they have reason, usually a result of knowing their sites like the back of their hand so that hunches come into play, to suspect are manuports, it is a judgement call. They cannot actually prove they are manuports, and they cannot prove if a manuport, that they must have been part of a shamans kit. Myself, and the other experienced collectors I know who have found probable manuports, are perfectly capable of understanding the limitations of what we can know with certainty. If I did not make that clear to your exacting requirements, maybe this statement on my part will make that clear enough. I cannot know with certainty that a shaman was involved placing a quartz crystal with a cremation burial from 3000 years ago, but it certainly is not a completely unreasonable possibility, despite limitations in what we can know making it a certainty not possible. Anyway, I'm not going to qualify observations any further then that.

And again, your effort to somehow drag me into an argument over shamans and rock art, is evidence to me, that you simply like to disagree with other posters if at all possible. It's clear enough I never addressed that issue at all, so why you would say I would be mistaken if I said there was a relation of shamans to rock art is beyond me. Unless, as I say, and honestly, I hope I'm not saying this unfairly, it's simply evidence of you like to argue, or you like to always be right, or whatever. All I know is you had absolutely no reason whatsoever to even suggest any ideas I might have on a subject.

Did shamans produce rock art? In the case of images of transformative beings, maybe. Can't imagine why not. But I can visualize any number of reasons for rock art in the Americas that don't necessarily involve shamans. At the same time, having personally partook in several ayahuasca ceremonies with Peruvian shamans, and experienced shared visions with those shamans, and other Westerners, at the time, it's not difficult for me to see some of the images of transformative humans, and I'm thinking of certain petroglyphs panels in Canyonlands National Park when I say that, as being the result of shamans in particular. Or perhaps resulting from vision quests. But, in a very general sense, and based on those petroglyphs I have myself recorded locally, I can visualize many reasons behind their creation....

No doubt you hadn't come across the term shamaniacs either . Spelling doesn't matter but being brought to task about spelling when the objector had never even come across the term is quite funny .

I'm not offended by the you use of the term shaman ,and didn't say I was .However indigenes often are offended by the term . e.g. http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/awa ... amans.html and countless examples from the literature . As are real shamen who will point out the error when the term is applied to other cultures where what is being practiced is not shamanism , but described as such by the ignorant or those with an agenda . The use of term is lazy and mentions of it often derives from those archaeologists who imagine that much of native American /Indian rock art was the work of shamen . This has easily been refuted , often from ethnography .

I disagree about extrapolating from modern practices to prehistory , cosmologies and practices changed in prehistory never mind into the present , but the important point is that what ever the practices in prehistory it has never been shown to be shamanism . Look at totem poles , they became an iconic but the early travellers tales don't mention anything like what was built in the 19th C ,and there is nothing to suggest that anything other than small posts were the precursors and certainly nothing to suggest that they existed at all in prehistory . The problem with finding shaman's quartz , is not the quartz , it's the attribution shaman . Spiritual practices like that of the medicine man ,real shamen ,priests ,sorcerers ,healers etc vary from continent to continent and within countries , describing them as shamen is lazy ,wrong and offensive to those who do not have genuine shamen in their culture .

My agreement with you about the ubiquity in the use of quartz and the interest in the choice of rocks for their visually striking character , was not mentioned in relation to American Indian sites . It was about a general observable aesthetic in prehistory ,in this case as found in Europe .

You haven't responded to Don't non shamen like shiny stones ?Did you find your shiny rocks in the north west ? Were the shiny rocks as recent as the Tlingit kits ?

The modern Tlingit kits consist of more than just shiny stone(s) ,where was the remainder of the kit ? Where is the ethnography mentioning kits that contained just shiny stones . Were the shiny stones actually quartz?

This is from my own collection, and was included in my friend and archaeologist's Ed Lenik's most recent book documenting Native American non utilitarian artifacts from the Northeast. Ed is an expert on petroglyphs from the Northeast; we have collaborated on several petroglyphs sites in Rhode Island. In this instance, however, we're dealing with an effigy as rock art, not a manuport, nor a petroglyphs as rock art, and one of the more unique effigies known from this region, as it is possible to view it and interpret it in several ways. From one perspective, it resembles a turtle, from another a frog, and to some it resembles a fertility fetish. If one clicks at the link located at the bottom of this linked page, one can read Ed's interpretation, which does indeed suggest a connection with a shaman. That's Ed's interpretation, and he is not describing it as a proven fact. That the effigy was carved in a way that does permit multiple viewing options does seem obvious enough, and whether Ed's interpretation is more, or less, correct, does not make the effigy itself any less clever in the execution of its design:

I have 60 years experience finding, handling and understanding artifacts, manuports, and geofacts from southern New England. I'm quite secure in my own knowledge, quite secure in my own opinions, and quite clear about what I can know on these subjects with a degree of certainty, as well as degrees of uncertainty when that is the case. I do not need to argue or debate my knowledge or my opinions, as just described, with anyone. Particularly with individuals who are only looking to argue for the sake of argumentation. At this stage of my life, I just don't need that. Anyone is perfectly free to disagree with anything I say, and for any reason. I hope that would go without saying in any circumstance.

I don't care enough to debate rock art, the origins of rock art, whether any rock art can be associated with shamans, whether any manuports can be associated with shamans or with spiritual practices, etc.

My only point, once this thread was restarted most recently, was to point out that rocks that resemble things like faces, but show no evidence whatsoever of tooling by humans, yet are found in association with artifacts, are known as manuports, not artifacts. And, of course, manuports can also be things as simple as raw material showing utilization. For instance, one of my prehistoric sites has yielded many pieces of graphite displaying the fact that that graphite was utilized to extract black pigment. The exact origin of that graphite can be demonstrated as a dozen miles south of the site in question. So I can be certain it was transported by humans from a distance. It's utilization can be demonstrated by the extraction marks. But, it qualifies not as an artifact, but rather a manuport.

If rocks with faces are surface collected, with no direct association with identifiable man made artifacts, it becomes more difficult to prove it is an actual manuport, and without tool marks, it can never be identified as an artifact. If collections are put together, of rocks that resemble things, and if such rocks are simply gathered at random, with no attention paid to any possible association with a known prehistoric site, then that's cool perhaps, neat images, but archaeologists are less likely to take them seriously as possible manuports. I do know individuals with collections of such rocks. I am less certain what such individuals hope to prove from such collections. That said, I like the exhibit that was put together in Dallas, and appreciate it having been brought to my attention.

Edit: Tiompan, just now glanced at your last comment. I can't offer any proof of the presence of colorful stones in known shaman kits. I can assume that Fowler made an association between the manuports found in the cremation burials he described, and the spiritual practitioners / shamans/ priests of the Archaic groups in question, because he assumed such spiritual practitioners would oversee such burials and have seen to it such objects were placed in the graves along with the artifacts commonly also found in such burial contexts. But there is always the chance such objects were simply favorite possessions of the deceased, and not directly associated with the spiritual practitioner, or intended to serve some "magical" purpose by including them.

Last edited by shawomet on Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

These days , in Europe , any excavations at funereal monuments or rock art sites ,particular attention is paid to that most ubiquitous mineral ,quartz . All examples are considered as “finds” . These finds vary from a small number of deposits to mound coverings consisting of thousands of pieces . Visually striking stones , odd shaped stones , worked stones , stones of non local geology (when recognised ) are also included .

I could see nothing to disagree with in the Fowler paper ( the title apart) until “skillful and well trained men called shamans or medicine men “ .The first problem is that there is no mention of female shamen , they exist in shamanic cultures but not for Fowler which might suggest the limitations of his conclusions . The medicine men gets forgotten despite the fact that medicine men are found in north America and all are now rationalised as shamen . He then admits it's a guess about the shaman placing the deposits . Shaman was a popular attribution in the period ,but my problem with this in this context is that the term shaman is misleading for the reasons given above and as you suggest the deposition need not have been done by a medicine man / spiritual specialist /priest etc. The paper was of it's time ,but it highlights how easily the attribution of shaman became the norm with nothing to support it . On a similar tack it is becoming clear that many grave goods are not necessarily associated with the sex, status ,place in society , the individual(s) being buried .

These days , in Europe , any excavations at funereal monuments or rock art sites ,particular attention is paid to that most ubiquitous mineral ,quartz . All examples are considered as “finds” . These finds vary from a small number of deposits to mound coverings consisting of thousands of pieces . Visually striking stones , odd shaped stones , worked stones , stones of non local geology (when recognised ) are also included .

I could see nothing to disagree with in the Fowler paper ( the title apart) until “skillful and well trained men called shamans or medicine men “ .The first problem is that there is no mention of female shamen , they exist in shamanic cultures but not for Fowler which might suggest the limitations of his conclusions . The medicine men gets forgotten despite the fact that medicine men are found in north America and all are now rationalised as shamen . He then admits it's a guess about the shaman placing the deposits . Shaman was a popular attribution in the period ,but my problem with this in this context is that the term shaman is misleading for the reasons given above and as you suggest the deposition need not have been done by a medicine man / spiritual specialist /priest etc. The paper was of it's time ,but it highlights how easily the attribution of shaman became the norm with nothing to support it . On a similar tack it is becoming clear that many grave goods are not necessarily associated with the sex, status ,place in society , the individual(s) being buried .

I don't really know what seems more likely. That each individual interred in a cremation burial had personal manuport objects, represented by concretions, polished pebbles, and crystal forms, and these were seemingly very commonly included along with utilitarian objects, perhaps for use in the next world, or that the manuports were in fact included as part of a ceremonial dynamic controlled by a spiritual practitioner, and those particular manuports were included by the spiritual practitioner. I'm trying to visualize a situation where each dearly departed possessed a pretty polished rock or crystal form. That strikes me as odd, but not impossible. Maybe if written off as "everyone had a lucky stone" and wanted it buried with them. Obviously, I can't recreate a cultural belief that included carrying around lucky stones to the degeee that everyone cremated took their lucky stone to the grave with them. Nor can I recreate a cultural milieu where the priests regarded such stones as somehow of benefit to the departed, and included them as part of the spiritual ceremony attending the cremation burial.

A tradition of lucky stones which the departed wanted interred with their remains. A tradition of manuport stones seen by the priests as integral to the ceremony attended to the burial of a member of the community.

Or other options that explain what these non utilitarian manuports are doing, so frequently accompanying cremation burials in the Northeast during the Archaic era.

Well, whatever the case, here is an example of how amateur, but highly experienced, surface hunters act on hunches where identifying possible manuports on surface hunted prehistoric sites in New England. Comment # 4 in the linked thread is one of the two possible manuports in a corn field that contains very few ordinary rocks, so that a rock such as shown in comment # 4 is really very notacible for its "out of place" nature, its total high polish, and it's great attractiveness. Part of a shaman's kit is obviously an unprovable explanation. But given the frequent presence of such manuports in cremation burials, and the likelihood priests did officiate over such burials, it's not too hard to understand how the idea developed. We have always posed that explanation as merely a suggestion. I'm well aware that it cannot be presented as a certainty. I don't believe it's a suggestion without merit, just fundamentally unprovable minus a shaman's kit with a full complement of the type of items shown in Fowler's article illustrating and describing manuports found in cremation burials, and one Woodland Era flexed burial.

Really, the bottom line for myself and other experienced surface hunters, when keeping an eye out for such objects is to recognize a possible manuport when we find one, and not a concern as to whether they were in a shaman's kit, brought up from a cremation burial by farm equipment, or simply transported to the camp in prehistoric times. The aim is simply to be able to recognize such things if one does come across a possible candidate. With that in mind, comment # 4 at this thread shows my best, which may be compared to stone # 13 in Fowler's study....

Jack Hranicky, RPA has recently finished a book and report, both in color. Access to brief descriptions and ordering are to be found on his web site: archeology.org (no "a") which appears as "Virginia Academic Press." The book is called "PaleoAmerican Archaeology in Virginia," and the report is called "The Higgins Site, Clarke County, Virginia - A View of a PaleoAmerican Site in Virginia." Jack is sending me copies, but I have not yet received them.

Also of note is that the "accident" ("president" a la Rasaan Roland Kirk) actually signed into law federal recognition of five Virginia tribes to include the Monacan Nation (ca, 2300 folks). I congratulate my Monacan friends and the other tribes in their hard earned success after a lengthy and frustrating process. Senators Kaine and Warner, among others, were instrumental in seeing this through.

This image shows an artifact found in a strategic spring branch location on the Virginia mountain site. The piece is approximately 2"x4" and is fashioned from jasper crystal rock. The left end is the working end of a tool that fits very comfortably in one's hand with a concave thumb enhancement. This attitude shows the knapping and/or carving by the creator which cannot be readily seen on the opposite side. In various attitudes the rock demonstrates a bird profile, a human profile (when rotated 90 degrees both clockwise and counter clockwise), and a bear profile as seen above.

There are micro images of many people all over the piece, but my camera is not up to the task of recording them. Other jasper artifacts have been found in the same location, two of which were identified as "provable" Pleistocene pieces by Jack Hranicky. He has not seen this item.

I am narrowing my search for jasper sources on the site. I am finding a good bit from a shelf in a waterfall and in a rock shelter, but these are loose pieces and I want to locate the source. Another unrelated natural attribute to the place is the ID of a pre Colombian Northern Red Oak damaged by the "derecho" five or so years ago. A Monacan neighbor with a forestry degree from Yale was nice enough to perform a healing ceremony on the tree. These ancient trees are very special to the Monacans as they are a direct link to a time when their ancestors inhabited the area. That occupation has gone unbroken from long ago and the local Monacans are justly proud of their tenure.